Pirates Beware: The Software Police are
Looking For You - A CAD Users' Guide to Copyright Infringement

By: Susan Maclean This article was
first published in the January 1996 issue of CAD Systems magazine.

About 58 of every 100 business software programs
in use in Canada last year were illegally copied, representing an estimated
value of more than $345 million.Whatever
name you give it ( copyright infringement, 'soft-lifting', software piracy) it's
a problem that just keeps growing and growing as the use of software increases.

"Piracy almost sounds romantic," complains
Frank Clegg, general manager, Microsoft Canada and president of the Canadian
Alliance Against Software Theft (CAAST). "It's stealing. So let's stop calling
it piracy and not give it a connotation other than what it is. If you showed up
for work in a stolen car, I think the majority of people would say 'I don't
think that's right.' But because it's software and it's not quite as tangible, I
don't think we're as hard core about it as we could be.

"Because there are more people buying
software, there are more people stealing it. We are seeing a great effort by the
large Financial Post 100 companies. Just about all of them have a formal policy
and employees know that they can be terminated if they're caught stealing
software. So now we want to work on the small and medium businesses and also
with the people on the home front.

"Software is intellectual property created at
enormous cost," he adds. "It is protected by law. Stealing software is like
stealing anything else. It is wrong."

Art Cooper, manager of engineering services,
Paul Wurth Ltd., agrees. The company is primarily an engineering company, but
also sells equipment and processing for metals handling and producing.

"We had a philosophical discussion when we
started using CAD about 10 years ago," he recalls. "One of the things that
annoyed people in our company is that some of our customers pirate our
equipment. I had difficulty with the idea of pirating somebody else's products,
when we don't like them pirating our products. We explained this to the
president.

"Our livelihood depends on doing drawings,"
he adds, "so it would be very silly to do that with essentially stolen property
which could be taken away from you. If you were a mechanic, you wouldn't steal
all your tools. When the police came and charged you with possession of stolen
property, they'd take your tools away. It just doesn't make any sense."

Autodesk Canada's general manager Dave
Mountain describes the illegal use of software as the single largest problem
facing the software industry today. "It's similar to people putting the extra
outlet on their cable in their basement or in their bedroom. It's not just
viewed as theft."

He figures that considering the downstream
revenue that the Canadian dealers are losing as a result of software piracy,
including lost revenue to training and support contracts through the sale of
software, about $100 million in Canada annually is lost to Autodesk alone.

"We estimate that for every legal copy of
AutoCAD in use in Canada, there's an illegal copy."

THE LAW & YOUR RESPONSIBILITIES

In 1988, Parliament amended the Canadian
Copyright Act to expressly include computer programs in the definition of
literary work. This clearly confirmed that software is entitled to copyright
protection.

The Act prohibits making unauthorized copies
of software programs without the consent of the copyright owner. The exceptions
are a user's right to make a backup copy or to adapt a program to another
computer language to make it compatible with the user's computer. Both these
exceptions are limited to a single copy for personal use which must be destroyed
when the user is no longer the original owner. The Act makes it an offense to
knowingly produce, distribute or import for sale infringing copies of computer
programs.

Effective January 1, 1994, a rental right was
added to the act so that the rental of such a program for gain constitutes
copyright infringement.

So, as a software user, your first
reponsibility is to purchase original programs only for your use. It is illegal
to purchase a single set of original software to load onto more than one
computer or to lend, copy or distribute software for any reason without the
prior consent of the software manufacturer.

THE ENFORCERS

Two software industry groups have the support
of The Canadian government and the RCMP who have actively participated in
protecting the rights of copyright owners.

The Business Software Alliance (BSA) - Member
companies of the Business Software Alliance are Autodesk Inc., Bentley Systems
Inc., Intergraph Corporation, Lotus Development Corporation, Microsoft
Corporation, Novell and the WordPerfect Applications Group, and The Santa Cruz
Operation.

Their mission is to eradicate software piracy
through enforcement, education and public policy activities in more than 60
countries, including Canada. The BSA works with governments around the world to
provide guidance for strengthening copyright laws and increase enforcement. It
operates 35 hotlines around the world for callers seeking information or to
report suspected incidents of software theft. The hotline number in Canada is
1-800-688-2721.

Since its inception in 1988, the BSA has
filed nearly 600 lawsuits worldwide against suspected software copyright
infringers. Founding member Autodesk has recovered nearly US$20 million to date
from firms in North America. Autodesk's own hotline number is 1-800-NO COPIES.
The company's anti-theft department in the U.S. reports they are currently
negotiating settlements with more than 20 firms in Toronto, Montreal and Calgary
in the engineering, architectural, manufacturing and educational industries.

Canadian Alliance Against Software Theft (CAAST)
- Nine software companies in Canada have teamed up as the Canadian Alliance
Against Software Theft (CAAST). Autodesk Canada Inc. is the only CAD software
member to date. CAAST is fighting illegal software use through education and,
when software pirates are caught red-handed, through litigation. The group
offers a guide to software management via its CAAST anti-piracy hotline
(1-800-263-9700). But CAAST also invites people to call that number and leave
anonymous tips on the recording. CAAST has followed up some of those tips by
bringing in the Federal Court of Canada to conduct surprise raids.

One of CAAST's raids last summer resulted in
a claim against Kellam Berg Engineering & Surveys Ltd. in Calgary. The
45-employee firm was accused of using apparently illegal copies of AutoCAD and
other software distributed by Lotus, Microsoft and Symantec. As this is written,
negotiations are underway for an out-of-court settlement.

Raids aren't the typical approach CAAST
takes, reassures Clegg. "We'll usually send a letter and say 'you've been
accused, why don't you go through this self-audit process and voluntarily clean
this up yourself'. Then they might come back to us and make a donation to CAAST
or whatever. We've only gone with an order from a judge less than five times in
Canada."

What happens if your company is raided? Do
you have the right to refuse an audit?

"If we have an anton pillar order from the
judge that we're allowed to search the grounds, no, you can't refuse," answers
Clegg. "It's no different from having a stolen car in your garage and someone
shows up and says I've got a court order here that you've got a stolen car in
your garage. You can't really refuse. In fact, if we have a sheriff or somebody
with us, forcefully you can be made to stand away from the equipment so we can
inspect it."

THE LAWBREAKERS

There are three types of popular piracy:

soft-lifting where people use more
licenses than what they are entitled to use;

hard disk loaders where computers are
sold with software not authorized to be loaded; and

counterfeiting where software purchased
looks like the real thing but isn't.

Soft-lifting is the most common form of
software piracy in the CAD industry.

"If you're the owner of the company, make
sure you know what the employees have got on the computer and what they're doing
with it," cautions the owner of a firm caught with illegal copies of AutoCAD and
who wished to remain anonymous. "The key issue is to understand your licenses
and make sure your people understand the licenses. Then watch that they keep
doing it right and don't get sloppy.

"Our biggest mistake is I trusted my
employees to manage my systems and I didn't look into it. When they came and
audited us, there was stuff copied all over the place. People weren't using it,
but that doesn't matter. It was an infringement of the copyright.

"It was a big surprise to me that when we
upgraded from AutoCAD 11 to 12 we had to throw the old version away," he adds.
"I thought we still owned the rights to AutoCAD 11. I didn't know the rules. As
soon as the discovery was made, we corrected it."

Of course he wasn't the only one making those
mistakes as Les Nip, director of sales for the CAD Resource Centre reports.

"We do have some larger organizations where
at the departmental level the user of the software is actually loading it on
several machines and the upper management may not be aware of that," he admits.
"The problem for those larger corporations is they only budget so much money, so
the upper management only gives out so much. You've got to deal with whatever
you get. So it's the process of educating people, and making them aware of the
legal consequences."

But not everyone seems convinced the problem
is ignorance.

"It's 100% a cost issue," says Bruce Lamb,
president of Autodesk dealer Automated Design Systems. "They feel that the cost
being charged may be excessive. They'll say 'well how much does it cost to
duplicate these manuals?' They don't see the amount of research and development
that goes into creating the product, supporting the product and developing the
product so that there are new features coming out. My argument to that has been,
'well if you think Autodesk is making too much money, then you should be buying
Autodesk shares, so that you're taking part in those supposedly excess profits.'

"If they steal the software because it's too
expensive, they shouldn't be using it," he argues.

THE PENALTIES & RISKS

If caught with pirated software, you or your
company may face civil and criminal penalties. Civil remedies include an
injunction, an award of damages and an accounting of profits. Criminal penalties
for copyright infringement include a fine of up to $1 million and/or a jail term
of up to five years. The largest Canadian fine to date has been $60,000 with
some community service work.

CAAST lead counsel Mike Eisen predicts the
penalties for illegal software use will get stiffer. The penalties now start
with a $25,000 fine and six months in jail for a summary conviction.
"Increasingly as these cases are publicized, the fines will get stiffer and
we'll be seeing an increase over time as crown attorneys can argue against
ignorance," Eisen warns.

The negative publicity alone can be a severe
penalty. "We made a mistake, yes, but the media attention was unfair," an
anonymous 'caught' engineering firm spokesperson recalls. "We are professionals.
Piracy is making copies and selling them for gain. We weren't. People
interpreted us as major time bad guys. We lost clients over this."

Even if you're not caught, you face other
unnecessary risks. Copied software is the number one way that computer viruses
are spread. You may also have inadequate or defective documentation. You won't
have the technical product support that is available to registered users. Nor
will you get the software upgrades, product tips and new product information.

Plus, as Lamb pointed out, you slow the rate
of the software industry's growth and stifle its innovation.

"If you assume that the Canadian revenue for
AutoCAD and other Autodesk products is roughly $25 million per year, then there
is another $25 million per year of software being copied," adds Mountain.
"Approximately US$60 million every year goes into research and development on
our products. The legal users are being robbed of some new features and
enhancements that could be put into the product if the revenue streams would
allow an increase in our development. The jobs not being filled at authorized
training centres, dealerships and support houses could probably be upwards of 50
or 60 in Canada. Just the loss in (Canadian) tax revenue alone is $2.5 million
per year. I think it affects everybody."

SOFTWARE SUPPLIERS' RESPONSIBILITIES

As one reformed CAD soft-lifter noted,
however, the door swings two ways. Software companies surely have some
responsibility here. Because of AutoCAD's predominant market share, Autodesk is
the first to come to mind.

Even though fully committed to adhering to
copyright requirements, Cooper remarks: "In a way, piracy has been good for
Autodesk. So many people have pirated AutoCAD that it has become the standard.
The piracy has been responsible for them being the biggest. Once people copy it,
they learn how to use it. Once they learn how to use it, they prefer it. Unless
you have continual access to upgrades, you can't keep copying the upgrades.
Usually you have to buy at least one, so they get the sale of at least one that
they might not otherwise get. There are cheaper packages that do the same thing,
but because they were one of the first and were widely copied, they became the
industry standard."

"Companies like Autodesk shouldn't complain
about piracy; I think they encourage it," comments Serge Bouhadana at BAGH, a
distributor for Architrion CAD software. "They're not protecting their software.
I think it helps them because it creates a huge community of users. As soon as a
company (pirating the software) starts getting serious, then they'll purchase
the software anyway. You have a lot of small organizations that cannot afford
it, so they basically copy it. It's so easy. You really have to be very, very
honest not to use it.

"We have hardware protection in our software
and basically we haven't had any piracy," he adds. "To my knowledge, no one has
broken the dongle we use."

Interestingly, Bentley Systems joined the BSA
in February 1995. Although their MicroStation product features a hardware lock,
marketing vice president Yoav Etiel likens that to putting bars on windows. "It
doesn't mean someone determined to get in won't get in." Joining the fight
against piracy certainly demonstrated support to their new distribution channel
of 500 plus VARS worldwide, particularly in the Middle East and Africa where BSA
stats reveal piracy rates soaring close to 100%.

One CAD user who requested anonymity
complained that Autodesk's requirement that old versions of AutoCAD be discarded
when an upgrade is purchased is impractical. Some other programs his firm uses
depend on the AutoCAD engine but aren't compatible with Release 13.

He also suggested that AutoCAD would be
copied less if Autodesk offered site licensing. He noted that a third-party
vendor sells an eight-station site license for about $12,000 and only charges
$250 for each additional seat. AutoCAD is $3,500 for the first, second, third
and every other seat.

Another option which Adobe PhotoShop uses,
for example, is a network licensing scheme which provides a floating license for
a set number of users who check the software out each time they use it. If a
company has a floating license for six users and all copies are in use, for
example, a seventh user could not access the software until one of the others
checked it back in. As well as cost effective, this would offer the additional
advantage of internal monitoring and self-auditing. The need for more licenses
would also become more apparent.

Graphisoft's pay per use scheme for its
ArchiCAD software is still another option other software companies could adopt.
For those who find the $5000 to $6000 price tag a big outlay, they can purchase
50 hours of access for $300 ($450 for the first 50 hours). ArchiCAD offers the
benefit of being operable without the meter running, since the hardware lock
simply enables the user to save the work to a file.

"The illegal copies are indirectly helping
the marketing for it," he explains. "If they already are familiar with the
software, when they become professional, they will choose to have the legal
version with the support. It is absolutely no effort to sell it. That's why we
give ArchiCAD away: so everyone can play with it and become familiar with it.
Our demo CD is a fully functional version. But unless they have a hardlock key,
they cannot save a file."

HOW YOU COULD GET CAUGHT

Meanwhile, those sponsoring the toll-free
Hotlines for reporting licensing violations say the calls keep coming in. The
most common callers are disgruntled ex-employees that know abuse of the license
agreement is going on and report it. But it's not just employees who call.

"Just two weeks ago I had a user of CAD with
a number of licensed copies of AutoCAD phone me anonymously and basically say,
'I'm getting sick and tired of having to compete for contracts with these people
who you already know are pirates when their cost base isn't the same as mine',"
says Mountain. "He called the anti-piracy hotline and gave some names and we are
actively pursuing those accounts."

Companies have also been caught when an
employee called into Autodesk for technical support. Autodesk doesn't support
any users directly, but if a user calls, Autodesk staff will ask "how many
copies of AutoCAD do you have?" If the user says "Oh, we have ten machines," for
example, a quick record check can reveal if all those seats are legitimate.

A dealer providing technical support may see
photocopied templates on a digitizer. No documentation can also be an indicator,
although a lot of users store documentation in a closet. The same serial number
on multiple computers is certainly a tip off.

"We're working with clients and we see what
they've got, especially if we've been working with them for a couple of years,"
explains Lamb. "So we notice if we walk in and we see that they've got two extra
workstations that we know they haven't bought through AutoCAD."

WHAT YOU SHOULD DO IF YOU'RE GUILTY

Software companies ask that you make remedies
to the companies whose software has been copied. Indeed, you may save money by
coming forward. If you wait until you're caught with copied AutoCAD, for
example, you'll have to buy AutoCAD at the full list price instead of the street
price ( not to mention any fine).

"Dealers are walking a fine line, worried
that their users are afraid of coming in for fear they will get turned in,"
reports Marti Mattia, with Autodesk Inc.'s industry marketing group. "Dealers
would rather work with customers to bring them up to a legal standard. For
example, they might work out a one-year plan to spread out the payments so the
customer doesn't have to pay all at once."

"If we find out that a client is shy one or
two licenses of AutoCAD, it puts us in a difficult position as well because our
authorization agreement is that we have to report known cases," agrees Lamb. "We
certainly try wherever possible to work with the client, to get them legitimate.

"I would say in 95% of the cases, that works.
But there has been the case where they say, "we just don't want to do that." We
have reported them and Autodesk has gone after them. It doesn't happen very
often, but it has happened. They're blatantly abusing the license agreement and
they know it and they don't care. Autodesk takes a very dim view of that and so
does the rest of the industry."

You might also consider a scaled down version
of software if it is available. For example, Paul Wurth's Cooper says his firm
finds AutoCAD LT works well in a situation where temporary drafting help is
hired for handling an extra heavy load. "The rest of that time, the computer's
sitting empty, so rather than have a $4,000 software package that's not being
used, it makes more sense to buy a $600 package. It's easier for them to learn,
plus it's a cheaper seat for us."

"It makes no good business sense to pirate
software," concludes Bentley's Etiel. "It's very much like taking something
that's not yours and using it as part of your business. I think companies are
very careful about taking anything else, but this is still an exception."

Since its inception in 1988, the BSA has
filed nearly 600 lawsuits worldwide against suspected software copyright
infringers. Founding member Autodesk has recovered nearly US$20 million to date
from firms in North America. Autodesk's own hotline number is 1-800-NO COPIES.
The company's anti-theft department in the U.S. reports they are currently
negotiating settlements with more than 20 firms in Toronto, Montreal and Calgary
in the engineering, architectural, manufacturing and educational industries.

Canadian Alliance Against Software Theft (CAAST)
- Nine software companies in Canada have teamed up as the Canadian Alliance
Against Software Theft (CAAST). Autodesk Canada Inc. is the only CAD software
member to date. CAAST is fighting illegal software use through education and,
when software pirates are caught red-handed, through litigation. The group
offers a guide to software management via its CAAST anti-piracy hotline
(1-800-263-9700). But CAAST also invites people to call that number and leave
anonymous tips on the recording. CAAST has followed up some of those tips by
bringing in the Federal Court of Canada to conduct surprise raids.

One of CAAST's raids last summer resulted in
a claim against Kellam Berg Engineering & Surveys Ltd. in Calgary. The
45-employee firm was accused of using apparently illegal copies of AutoCAD and
other software distributed by Lotus, Microsoft and Symantec. As this is written,
negotiations are underway for an out-of-court settlement.

Raids aren't the typical approach CAAST
takes, reassures Clegg. "We'll usually send a letter and say 'you've been
accused, why don't you go through this self-audit process and voluntarily clean
this up yourself'. Then they might come back to us and make a donation to CAAST
or whatever. We've only gone with an order from a judge less than five times in
Canada."

What happens if your company is raided? Do
you have the right to refuse an audit?

"If we have an anton pillar order from the
judge that we're allowed to search the grounds, no, you can't refuse," answers
Clegg. "It's no different from having a stolen car in your garage and someone
shows up and says I've got a court order here that you've got a stolen car in
your garage. You can't really refuse. In fact, if we have a sheriff or somebody
with us, forcefully you can be made to stand away from the equipment so we can
inspect it."

THE LAWBREAKERS

There are three types of popular piracy:

soft-lifting where people use more
licenses than what they are entitled to use;

hard disk loaders where computers are
sold with software not authorized to be loaded; and

counterfeiting where software purchased
looks like the real thing but isn't.

Soft-lifting is the most common form of
software piracy in the CAD industry.

"If you're the owner of the company, make
sure you know what the employees have got on the computer and what they're doing
with it," cautions the owner of a firm caught with illegal copies of AutoCAD and
who wished to remain anonymous. "The key issue is to understand your licenses
and make sure your people understand the licenses. Then watch that they keep
doing it right and don't get sloppy.

"Our biggest mistake is I trusted my
employees to manage my systems and I didn't look into it. When they came and
audited us, there was stuff copied all over the place. People weren't using it,
but that doesn't matter. It was an infringement of the copyright.

"It was a big surprise to me that when we
upgraded from AutoCAD 11 to 12 we had to throw the old version away," he adds.
"I thought we still owned the rights to AutoCAD 11. I didn't know the rules. As
soon as the discovery was made, we corrected it."

Of course he wasn't the only one making those
mistakes as Les Nip, director of sales for the CAD Resource Centre reports.

"We do have some larger organizations where
at the departmental level the user of the software is actually loading it on
several machines and the upper management may not be aware of that," he admits.
"The problem for those larger corporations is they only budget so much money, so
the upper management only gives out so much. You've got to deal with whatever
you get. So it's the process of educating people, and making them aware of the
legal consequences."

But not everyone seems convinced the problem
is ignorance.

"It's 100% a cost issue," says Bruce Lamb,
president of Autodesk dealer Automated Design Systems. "They feel that the cost
being charged may be excessive. They'll say 'well how much does it cost to
duplicate these manuals?' They don't see the amount of research and development
that goes into creating the product, supporting the product and developing the
product so that there are new features coming out. My argument to that has been,
'well if you think Autodesk is making too much money, then you should be buying
Autodesk shares, so that you're taking part in those supposedly excess profits.'

"If they steal the software because it's too
expensive, they shouldn't be using it," he argues.

THE PENALTIES & RISKS

If caught with pirated software, you or your
company may face civil and criminal penalties. Civil remedies include an
injunction, an award of damages and an accounting of profits. Criminal penalties
for copyright infringement include a fine of up to $1 million and/or a jail term
of up to five years. The largest Canadian fine to date has been $60,000 with
some community service work.

CAAST lead counsel Mike Eisen predicts the
penalties for illegal software use will get stiffer. The penalties now start
with a $25,000 fine and six months in jail for a summary conviction.
"Increasingly as these cases are publicized, the fines will get stiffer and
we'll be seeing an increase over time as crown attorneys can argue against
ignorance," Eisen warns.

The negative publicity alone can be a severe
penalty. "We made a mistake, yes, but the media attention was unfair," an
anonymous 'caught' engineering firm spokesperson recalls. "We are professionals.
Piracy is making copies and selling them for gain. We weren't. People
interpreted us as major time bad guys. We lost clients over this."

Even if you're not caught, you face other
unnecessary risks. Copied software is the number one way that computer viruses
are spread. You may also have inadequate or defective documentation. You won't
have the technical product support that is available to registered users. Nor
will you get the software upgrades, product tips and new product information.

Plus, as Lamb pointed out, you slow the rate
of the software industry's growth and stifle its innovation.

"If you assume that the Canadian revenue for
AutoCAD and other Autodesk products is roughly $25 million per year, then there
is another $25 million per year of software being copied," adds Mountain.
"Approximately US$60 million every year goes into research and development on
our products. The legal users are being robbed of some new features and
enhancements that could be put into the product if the revenue streams would
allow an increase in our development. The jobs not being filled at authorized
training centres, dealerships and support houses could probably be upwards of 50
or 60 in Canada. Just the loss in (Canadian) tax revenue alone is $2.5 million
per year. I think it affects everybody."

SOFTWARE SUPPLIERS' RESPONSIBILITIES

As one reformed CAD soft-lifter noted,
however, the door swings two ways. Software companies surely have some
responsibility here. Because of AutoCAD's predominant market share, Autodesk is
the first to come to mind.

Even though fully committed to adhering to
copyright requirements, Cooper remarks: "In a way, piracy has been good for
Autodesk. So many people have pirated AutoCAD that it has become the standard.
The piracy has been responsible for them being the biggest. Once people copy it,
they learn how to use it. Once they learn how to use it, they prefer it. Unless
you have continual access to upgrades, you can't keep copying the upgrades.
Usually you have to buy at least one, so they get the sale of at least one that
they might not otherwise get. There are cheaper packages that do the same thing,
but because they were one of the first and were widely copied, they became the
industry standard."

"Companies like Autodesk shouldn't complain
about piracy; I think they encourage it," comments Serge Bouhadana at BAGH, a
distributor for Architrion CAD software. "They're not protecting their software.
I think it helps them because it creates a huge community of users. As soon as a
company (pirating the software) starts getting serious, then they'll purchase
the software anyway. You have a lot of small organizations that cannot afford
it, so they basically copy it. It's so easy. You really have to be very, very
honest not to use it.

"We have hardware protection in our software
and basically we haven't had any piracy," he adds. "To my knowledge, no one has
broken the dongle we use."

Interestingly, Bentley Systems joined the BSA
in February 1995. Although their MicroStation product features a hardware lock,
marketing vice president Yoav Etiel likens that to putting bars on windows. "It
doesn't mean someone determined to get in won't get in." Joining the fight
against piracy certainly demonstrated support to their new distribution channel
of 500 plus VARS worldwide, particularly in the Middle East and Africa where BSA
stats reveal piracy rates soaring close to 100%.

One CAD user who requested anonymity
complained that Autodesk's requirement that old versions of AutoCAD be discarded
when an upgrade is purchased is impractical. Some other programs his firm uses
depend on the AutoCAD engine but aren't compatible with Release 13.

He also suggested that AutoCAD would be
copied less if Autodesk offered site licensing. He noted that a third-party
vendor sells an eight-station site license for about $12,000 and only charges
$250 for each additional seat. AutoCAD is $3,500 for the first, second, third
and every other seat.

Another option which Adobe PhotoShop uses,
for example, is a network licensing scheme which provides a floating license for
a set number of users who check the software out each time they use it. If a
company has a floating license for six users and all copies are in use, for
example, a seventh user could not access the software until one of the others
checked it back in. As well as cost effective, this would offer the additional
advantage of internal monitoring and self-auditing. The need for more licenses
would also become more apparent.

Graphisoft's pay per use scheme for its
ArchiCAD software is still another option other software companies could adopt.
For those who find the $5000 to $6000 price tag a big outlay, they can purchase
50 hours of access for $300 ($450 for the first 50 hours). ArchiCAD offers the
benefit of being operable without the meter running, since the hardware lock
simply enables the user to save the work to a file.

"The illegal copies are indirectly helping
the marketing for it," he explains. "If they already are familiar with the
software, when they become professional, they will choose to have the legal
version with the support. It is absolutely no effort to sell it. That's why we
give ArchiCAD away: so everyone can play with it and become familiar with it.
Our demo CD is a fully functional version. But unless they have a hardlock key,
they cannot save a file."

HOW YOU COULD GET CAUGHT

Meanwhile, those sponsoring the toll-free
Hotlines for reporting licensing violations say the calls keep coming in. The
most common callers are disgruntled ex-employees that know abuse of the license
agreement is going on and report it. But it's not just employees who call.

"Just two weeks ago I had a user of CAD with
a number of licensed copies of AutoCAD phone me anonymously and basically say,
'I'm getting sick and tired of having to compete for contracts with these people
who you already know are pirates when their cost base isn't the same as mine',"
says Mountain. "He called the anti-piracy hotline and gave some names and we are
actively pursuing those accounts."

Companies have also been caught when an
employee called into Autodesk for technical support. Autodesk doesn't support
any users directly, but if a user calls, Autodesk staff will ask "how many
copies of AutoCAD do you have?" If the user says "Oh, we have ten machines," for
example, a quick record check can reveal if all those seats are legitimate.

A dealer providing technical support may see
photocopied templates on a digitizer. No documentation can also be an indicator,
although a lot of users store documentation in a closet. The same serial number
on multiple computers is certainly a tip off.

"We're working with clients and we see what
they've got, especially if we've been working with them for a couple of years,"
explains Lamb. "So we notice if we walk in and we see that they've got two extra
workstations that we know they haven't bought through AutoCAD."

WHAT YOU SHOULD DO IF YOU'RE GUILTY

Software companies ask that you make remedies
to the companies whose software has been copied. Indeed, you may save money by
coming forward. If you wait until you're caught with copied AutoCAD, for
example, you'll have to buy AutoCAD at the full list price instead of the street
price ( not to mention any fine).

"Dealers are walking a fine line, worried
that their users are afraid of coming in for fear they will get turned in,"
reports Marti Mattia, with Autodesk Inc.'s industry marketing group. "Dealers
would rather work with customers to bring them up to a legal standard. For
example, they might work out a one-year plan to spread out the payments so the
customer doesn't have to pay all at once."

"If we find out that a client is shy one or
two licenses of AutoCAD, it puts us in a difficult position as well because our
authorization agreement is that we have to report known cases," agrees Lamb. "We
certainly try wherever possible to work with the client, to get them legitimate.

"I would say in 95% of the cases, that works.
But there has been the case where they say, "we just don't want to do that." We
have reported them and Autodesk has gone after them. It doesn't happen very
often, but it has happened. They're blatantly abusing the license agreement and
they know it and they don't care. Autodesk takes a very dim view of that and so
does the rest of the industry."

You might also consider a scaled down version
of software if it is available. For example, Paul Wurth's Cooper says his firm
finds AutoCAD LT works well in a situation where temporary drafting help is
hired for handling an extra heavy load. "The rest of that time, the computer's
sitting empty, so rather than have a $4,000 software package that's not being
used, it makes more sense to buy a $600 package. It's easier for them to learn,
plus it's a cheaper seat for us."

"It makes no good business sense to pirate
software," concludes Bentley's Etiel. "It's very much like taking something
that's not yours and using it as part of your business. I think companies are
very careful about taking anything else, but this is still an exception."

Then again, is copying and stealing ideas
particularly limited to software? Ever noticed how many fake Rolex watches there
are? Maybe the bottom line is really professionalism. As Graphisoft's Szabo
comments, "each job an architect does is worth too much to gamble on software or
any tool which hasn't a guarantee it's going to work or has no support with it."

Susan Maclean, freelance writer/editor, covers a wide range of IT applications.
She is based in Guelph, Ont., and can be reached at
www.sumac.net